Back in the Enterprise, Jim has two very important task, become the captain of his ship and go after the Narada. Could he do it without breaking Spock and keeping him on their side?

For a moment, Jim doesn't want to breathe. He looks down at himself almost like he is trying to make sure that every part of him is there with him. Then he look towards Lydia, she is there right next to him as beautiful as always. Yet before he can really think about what he just thought looking at her, he sees her eyes opened in horror. As he looks behind himself, he realizes that Scotty isn't there and that the banging he is hearing is actually him. Then Scotty appears in a translucent pipe, freaking out just when the strong current yanked him away.

"Oh shit," Lydia screamed as she started running, first after the Scotty in the tube then ahead.

"Lydia what is going on?" he asked trying to keep up with Scotty.

"I'm an engineer Jim, I know where that pipe leads and it is not good.

Then Jim sees what she was so worried about. There is a giant turbine and Scotty is headed right to it.

"LYDIA!" he screams as he still runs after Scotty.

"Yelling isn't going to help Jim," she said trying to gain access to the turbine. She tries to manually shut it down but no luck. Fine then if they wanted to make it harder. Finally after a second she get the right combination to opened the pipe just as Scotty was coming to the last bend.

"Mr. Scott you ok," asked Jim as he moved toward the man who had literally fallen from the pipe.

"Ugh uh ugh… I'm ok re'lly," he said between coughs trying to catch his breathe.

Lydia had taken a moment to make sure that everything in the system was back to it's original purpose and that her tampering hadn't done any damage before she moved toward the two men.

"We have to move," she said. "They will know we are here pretty soon in the bridge."

Looking at each other Jim gave Lydia a small nod. He knew what he had to do.

They needed to run, and so they did. Lydia, Kirk and a wet Scotty raced through the ship, only to finally turned a corner and be faced with phasers aimed right at them. Stepping in front of Lydia just in case one of this decided to get trigger happy Jim looked at the guards right in the face. Only to see that one of them was the guy from that bar fight that changed his life all those years ago.

"Come with me. Cupcake."

Well Shit.

The plan was that once they made it to the bridge Jim would be the one to talk and neither Lydia nor Scotty would try to get into it. He had to do it. This was his ship and he had to get it himself.

As they walked into the bridge, they saw everyone there. They were all looking at them like they had never seen them before. Maybe that wasn't it, and maybe it had more to do with the transporting to a ship that was in warp than anything else but not once did Jim nor Lydia bow their heads.

Seeing them come in Spock walked up to Kirk with one of his eyebrows raised.

"Surprise," Jim said.

Not wanting to deal with Kirk at the moment Spock turned to the one he didn't know. "Who are you?"

Not letting Scotty talk Jim said, "He's with me."

"We're travelling at warp," Spock spoke to Kirk. "How did you manage to get aboard this ship?"

It was a completely different experience for Jim right now talking to young Spock after getting to know Spock Prime. He wondered for a second how long it would take this Spock to turn into the man he saw.

"You're the genius, you figure it out."

"As Captain of this vessel I order you to answer the question."

"Well I'm not telling," then "Captain." That confounded Spock for a second and that was all Jim needed. "Does that frustrate you? My lack of cooperation... does it make you angry?"

Seeing he wasn't going to be getting to Kirk any time soon and that the same could be said for Lydia since she wasn't even looking at them Spock turned to the newcomer once more.

"You are not a member of this ship's crew. Under penalty of court martial, I order you to explain to me how you beamed ab –"

Jim to Scotty. "Don't answer him."

"You will answer me."

"I'd rather not take sides," Scotty said almost taking a step behind Lydia who seeing him gave him a smile.

Seeing her reaction to Scotty Spock moved towards Lydia only for her to turn full on towards him and say, "don't even try it."

"What is it about you, Spock?" Jim said taking Spock's attention off Lydia and back to him. This was it. This was the chance he needed. "Your planet was just destroyed - your mother murdered - and you're not even upset?"

"Your presumption that these experiences interfere with my abilities to command this ship is inaccurate—"

"Yet you said fear was necessary for command. I mean - did you see that bastard's ship? Did you see what he did?"

"Yes, of course I" and for the first time both Jim and Lydia detected something different in Spock's voice.

"So are you afraid or aren't you?!"

"I will not... allow you to lecture me about the merits of emotion."

Seeing he was affecting Spock Jim took a step toward him.

"Then why don't you stop me."

Everyone was watching, tense like they knew something was coming they just didn't know what or when.

"Step away from me, Mr. Kirk."

"What is it like? Not to feel? Anger. Or heartbreak. Or the need to stop at nothing to avenge the death of the woman who gave birth to you?!"

"- back away –" Closer still.

"You must not feel anything! It must not even compute for you! You must not have loved her at all-!"

There was no warning. Not even a small sign. One second they were face to face the next it's a flair of fist that no one, not even security could follow. Lydia tries to stay with Jim, but it's not possible. Then everyone sees it. Spock is choking Jim to death. It was an instinct one that Lydia knows well. Seeing Jim almost dying she jumped in to try to save him. Spock was concentrated on one thing though and when she went against him; Spock hit Lydia so hard that he send her flying against a panel hitting her head in the process.

"SPOCK!" Everyone turned to Spock's father who had spoken and seemed to be the only one who could get to him. Everything stopped. Spock, red face, finally releases Jim, whom after taking some big gulps of air moved toward Lydia to make sure she was safe.

As Spock turned, he saw everyone in the crew looking at him completely stunned. Spock looked at every one of them until he saw Kirk and Lydia on the floor. Her cheek was already turning red from when he had hit her. Yet Kirk wasn't looking at him with spite or hatred, both of which he would have understood, but with compassion. The man was on the floor barely breathing holding on to the woman he love that Spock himself had hurt, and still he could look at him with compassion? He had to turn away from them he couldn't keep looking at them. Still once he turned he found himself face to face with his father. His Father. Leveling his chin and wiping his eyes to try to keep some form of dignity he turned to the doctor.

"Doctor," he said softly. "I am no longer fit for duty. I hereby relinquish my command on the grounds that I have been... emotionally compromised. Please note the time and date in the ship's log."

No one knew what to do as Spock left the bridge. He had quit.

Finally breaking the silence Scotty decided to say, "I like this ship. It's exciting."

Getting up from the floor Jim looked Lydia over. He needed to make sure she was all right before he could do anything else. She had hit her head against a panel and the spot where Spock had hit her was already a very alarming shade of red.

"Are you ok," he asked taking her face softly in his hands; he didn't want to hurt her more than she already was.

"I am. What about you?"

"I am, he wasn't that strong," Jim told her with a smile.

Having been watching them for a few moments Bones decided he could not watch anything else. What if they started kissing right here in front of everyone.

"Congratulations, Jim," he said exasperated as he watched Jim and Lydia let go of each other. "Now we've got no Captain and no first officer to goddamn replace him."

This was it. This was the moment he had been waiting for since he first talked to Pike back at the bar all those years ago. Then why was he so afraid?

"Yeah we do," Jim said knowing that there was no going back. He was the captain now, with everything that came.

The whole crew was confused for a moment until Sulu said, "Pike made him First Officer."

"WHAT?!"

"Thanks for the support!" Jim said moving toward the Captain's chair, his chair.

As Uhura passed him, though, it was like she couldn't help herself.

"I sure hope you know what you're doing. Captain." The way she said it made Lydia mad. No one knew how much Jim wanted this, but not like this. He wanted to make his father's memory proud and be given a ship that he would command because he earned it. It was never his idea to cause mutiny and get Spock thrown out so he could sit pretty on the chair. She didn't say anything though because as she heard Jim respond with a 'so do I' she knew that Jim could handle the chair and this crew. That was what he was born to do. No one could say any different.

"Attention crew of the Enterprise. This is James Kirk... Mr. Spock has resigned commission and advanced me to acting Captain. I know you were all expecting to regroup with the fleet, but I've ordered a pursuit course of the enemy ship to Earth. I want all departments at battle stations and ready in ten minutes. Either we're going down, or they are. Kirk out."

"I want some answers," said Uhura coming to stand in front of Jim. She had put up with a lot because she was friends with Lydia but not anymore.

With a look at Uhura, Jim turned toward McCoy. "Bones look over Lydia I want to make sure she is alright."

"I am right here Jim."

"Good then you won't argue that much. I need to make sure you are in top shape before we catch up to the Narada."

McCoy moved to Lydia to look her over while everyone else turned to Jim.

"Hey," Uhura was pissed off. "Right now. Where the hell'd you get trans-warp technology?"

"Yeah, you know that's complicated." What was he supposed to say. Yeah the guy that almost kill me, you know him, well turns out we are best friends in the future and he gave it to me.

"Do I look simple to you?!" Uhura asked offended.

"I'm a PhD in astrophysics," said Sulu jumping into the argument. "I think I can handle it - how'd you get back?"

"You vant us to trust you but you von't tell us the truth?"

"No. No, I won't," but Lydia had enough.

"Enough," she said standing from where she had sat so McCoy could look her over. "You want to know how we did it, figure it out. It's not our job to tell you anything. We were maroon on a planet that only had one climate, cold. Therefore, we figured out how to get somewhere warmer, that's it. For the equation this guy knows it," she said pointing at Scotty. "Now can we move on from this because we need to figure a way to catch up to Nero's ship? I for one want Admiral Pike back."

They all looked at her. No one was really happy with the answer but right now wasn't the time for questions and they knew it.

"There's not a chance," said Sulu who seemed to be the first to come into working mode. "They're gonna be in geosynchronous orbit around Earth in ten minutes. We'll never make it."

"Even if we could," said McCoy knowing that if anyone could figure out a way to make ships go faster was Lydia. "You can't go in guns blazing, not with their technology, that's suicide."

"Then we find a way to get on that ship and steal the black hole device away from them."

"Well you can forget transwarp," said Scotty who had found a towel only he knew where. "No way to predict the Narada's position from here."

"Uhura: anything from Captain Pike?"

"No... I've been monitoring all channels."